SEPTEMBER 2018
SCULPTURES INSPIRED BY NATURE
Creations with permanence Protecting Lake of Bays Heritage
Tamarack Legends and Facts The intriguing saga of rail service and prosperity
Selling in Muskoka for 40 years Richard Wallace grabs the brass ring Page 10
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...telling the Muskoka story Features
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Muskoka Rail Service – A Time-trapped Saga
Article by J. Patrick Boyer The saga of railways in our district is a tale of beginnings and endings that starts in 1875 when the first train service to Muskoka crossed into Morrison Township at Severn Bridge. A new era of prosperity resulted when Muskoka was linked directly by rail to the world beyond.
Small Community Raises Big Funds
Article by Meghan Smith The small, largely seasonal resident community of Windermere plays host to an incredibly successful Terry Fox Run each year. Since it started in 2000, it has contributed $351,903 to cancer research.
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Nature Inspires Sculptures Created with Permanence
Article by Meghan Smith / Photography by Scott Turnbull Hilary Clark Cole creates one-of-a-kind steel and cast bronze sculptures, inspired by the animals, plants and surroundings of her Muskoka home. The ability to create such variety in her artwork speaks to the affinity Clark Cole has for her material and painstaking attention to detail.
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Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour Turns Forty
Article by Dawn Huddlestone It was an inspired idea – visitors could learn about Muskoka artisans while enjoying Muskoka’s renowned colours. Forty years since 10 artists first threw their doors open, the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour remains an astounding success and forms a template for similar events across the country.
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Preserving the Rich Heritage of Lake of Bays
Article by Judy Vanclieaf / Photography by Kelly Holinshead Together, the Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation and its sister organization, the Lake of Bays Heritage Advisory Committee, are a preservation powerhouse that focuses on the natural, the built and the cultural heritage of the area. They work alongside each other, doing what is best for the Lake of Bays area.
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Tipi Adventures – Connecting Family, Friends and the Environment
Article by Matt Driscoll / Photography by Tomasz Szumski Tipi Adventures offers an outdoor experience that is unlike most others. It not only provides the opportunity to explore five kilometres of maintained trails, a small pond and surrounding forest, it has programming that connects participants with the environment.
You plan for uninterrupted Muskoka sunsets here. What about uninterrupted healthcare here?
In Muskoka, there are some things you can simply count on. Fresh air, pristine nature, the gentle sway of a dock. But when the unexpected happens, you can also count on exceptional hospital care from Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare. To ensure it stays that way, there is a growing need for state-of-the-art equipment, updated information technology and better infrastructure that provincial healthcare taxes don’t cover. With your generous support today, those needs can be met and you can plan on the best possible care to be provided for you, your family and every patient who needs it; often when it’s least expected. Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare is here for you with caring and compassionate healthcare professionals standing by at two sites. Give to the foundation of your choice to support hospital care in Muskoka and everyone benefits today and for years to come.
healthmuskoka.ca 705-645-4404 ext. 3246
huntsvillehospitalfoundation.ca 705-789-2311 ext. 2492
Features
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Distinctive Tamaracks – Legend and Facts
Article by Doug Smith Photography by Eleanor Kee Wellman Part of the “last hurrah” of autumn, tamaracks are a unique deciduousconiferous tree. While not as popular as many trees with the pioneer logging industry, tamaracks were used for medicinal purposes and making snowshoes.
SEPTEMBER 2018
Departments 11
Muskoka Calendar SCULPTURES INSPIRED BY NATURE
Creations with permanence Protecting Lake of Bays Heritage
Our Cover
Tamarack Legends and Facts The intriguing saga of rail service and prosperity
Photograph By Scott Turnbull The heart of Hilary Clark Cole’s body of work is her thoughtfulness in researching the figures she’s choosing to depict. The natural environment inspires her creations.
Opinion
When the calendar flips to September, there’s a rush to enjoy outdoor events that require warm weather. Water-ski championships and rowing competitions continue the summer activities while fall fairs and a macaroni festival celebrate unique aspects of Muskoka’s heritage.
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What’s Happened
A recommendation to keep two acutecare hospital sites has received the support of the Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare board of directors, paving the way for future planning. The opening of a new visitor centre, Muskoka’s first Pride parade and an update on the health of Muskoka’s watershed are all highlights of the past month.
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Cottage Country Cuisine
September brings fall colours and the perfect opportunity to explore Muskoka’s many trails. If you’re making it a substantial walk, you’re going to want to nibble along the way, enjoy a picnic lunch in some idyllic spot and then recharge with a hearty dinner. This month’s food suggestions cover all of these bases.
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Muskoka Insights By Don Smith
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Muskoka Moments By Scott Young
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 5
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Muskoka Insights Literally tens of thousands have shared this educational experience. Over a couple of weekends, the public can be a part of an artisan’s life. “I enable the conversation which gives them a better appreciation for what I do,” says Jon Partridge, one of the founding members of the tour and the only one who has taken part in all 40 years. For more on the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour, look inside this issue of Unique Muskoka for the feature written by regular contributor Dawn Huddlestone. Also featured in this issue is respected sculptor Hilary Clark Cole. An original member of the tour, Clark Cole has pushed the boundaries of creativity since her days as a student at the Ontario College of Art. Producing one-of-akind pieces in both welded metals and cast bronze, Clark Cole’s work truly embodies the creativity that comes from embracing the natural environment. Featured in many public installations and held by private collectors, Clark Cole’s significant body of work marries the strength of steel with detailed research to produce works that are both powerful and beautiful. As with every issue of Unique Muskoka, we aim to celebrate a number of subjects. At a time when passenger rail service is receiving increased attention, historian and regular contributor Patrick Boyer explores the impact the development of rail service had on Muskoka. The intriguing tamarack tree, the devotion of Lake of Bays volunteers to local heritage, adventures in tipis and the immense difference a small community can make in raising funds for cancer research are all interesting features for your perusal. Photograph: Susan Smith
Here, in Muskoka, we are surrounded by natural beauty. Bubbling streams, flowing rivers, vast lakes, powerful waterfalls, rugged rocks, monumental cliffs, magnificent trees, swaying grasses, inquisitive wildlife – these and more provide a backdrop that is uniquely Muskokan. Even our urban areas brim with these features. It is what attracts so many regular visitors who return, year after year. With all of this inspiration, it should come as little surprise Muskoka is home to a thriving community of artisans. Quite simply, there is inspiration everywhere for those who allow themselves to be embraced by Muskoka’s natural attributes. Not only is there much to stimulate the creative process, nature is very valuable as a calming influence that allows the mind to refocus so it can better express its thoughts in art forms. While early records refer to artists creating their works in Muskoka, it was midway through the last century that the growth of the creative community resulted in the formation of Muskoka Arts & Crafts in 1963. Among the endeavours that have set Muskoka and our artisans apart was the launch of the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour which this year is celebrating its 40th anniversary. It began with a group of artisans who thought combining the annual trek to view the autumn colours would be an excellent opportunity to provide visitors with another experience . . . and they were right! Welcoming visitors into their studios and homes, Muskoka artisans provided the community with an inside look at their lifestyle – how they create, the effort that is devoted to creating, the uniqueness of each piece. The connections the tour has produced have resulted in the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour not only thriving for over 40 years but also becoming the template used by many other artistic communities.
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Muskoka Calendar World Water-ski Team Championships make history at Deerhurst
The Bracebridge Fall Fair runs September 14 to 16. While the midway is always a big hit, there’s a wide variety of events in the tradition of fall fairs.
worldwaterskishowtournament.com
Ontario rowers compete on Gull Lake The Severn River Rowing Club will once again host the Muskoka Fall Classic Regatta with spectators invited to view the race from Rotary Gull Lake Park in Gravenhurst. Competitors representing rowing clubs from Ontario and further afield will row along a three-kilometre course extending the length of the beautiful lake, passing under the Highway 11 bridge, as they vie for the coveted Gold Honey Jar award which includes genuine golden honey from Lavender Hills Farms. The event runs all day with the first race starting at 9:15 a.m. and the last at 3:15 p.m. Rules, maps, registration and more information are on the website. srrc2016.wixsite.com
Off-Broadway hit musical pokes fun at small-town life Greater Tuna is coming to Gravenhurst Opera House. This fabulous musical show stars accomplished local actors Allie Dunbar
Photograph: Bracebridge Agricultural Society
The 2018 World Water-ski Show Team Championship has never been held outside the USA, until this year, when it will happen at Deerhurst Resort, September 7 to 9. This competition will host more than 250 top show skiers from Australia, Belgium, China, Germany, the USA and the home team, of course, from Canada. More than 175,000 webcast viewers are expected to watch this spectacular tourney. Opening ceremonies happen on September 7 at 6:30 p.m. and the public is invited. Tickets are available for the two days of competition and closing ceremonies. and Robin Clipsham playing the entire population of the perfectly normal little town of Tuna, Texas – population 20 – at breakneck speed and with lightning costume changes. It’s written by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard, and is directed by Maja Ardal, former artistic director of YPT in Toronto. Greater Tuna runs September 11to 28, with matinees Tuesday-Thursday and evening performances WednesdayFriday. For fast-paced, side-splitting, small-town fun, get tickets online or at the box office. gravenhurst.ca/en/opera/shows.asp
151st annual Bracebridge Fall Fair is packed with events Yes, it’s that time of year: the leaves are turning, the farmers are hauling in their harvests and everyone is celebrating it all at the local fall fairs. The Bracebridge fair runs September 14 to 16 and features more activities, events, contests and fun than we can possibly list, but here are some highlights: midway rides, antique tractor pull, petting zoo, super dogs, mini chuckwagons, horse competitions, the Fire
Guy, weaving and spinning demos, hay wagon rides, pony rides, parade, weigh-in for giant pumpkins and other giant vegetables, draft horse pull, dog-powered sports, livestock shows, live music and beer garden. bracebridgefair.com
Muskoka River X is world’s longest single-day race The Muskoka River X is back for its fifth gruelling year, September 15 to 16, as competitors in the classic race paddle and portage 130 kilometres in less than 24 hours with no support teams and no re-supplies – taking on the toughest single-day canoe race in the world. Traversing two river systems, three lakes and 20 portages, the course takes them via the North Muskoka River from Huntsville to Port Sydney to Bracebridge (where they’ll portage through the centre of town), then back to Huntsville via the South Muskoka River and Lake of Bays. Beginners might try a mere 80 kilometres in the Muskoka River X Sprint, travelling from Huntsville to Bracebridge. Come out and cheer them on! muskokariverx.com
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 11
Before the Huntsville Town Hall was built, the Strano Pasta Factory sat on the same plot of land. To celebrate this history as well as pasta in all its glory, downtown Huntsville presents the inaugural Macaroni Festival, happening on Sept. 15. This newly rolled-out event will feature a mac-n-cheese contest, macaroni art, community bake sales, the selection of a macaroni king and queen, umpteen opportunities to smell, taste and gorge on freshly-made pasta, and more. downtownhuntsvilleadventures.ca/calendar/2017/9/16/ harvest-festival-ycz94
Enough spookiness to wake the dead happens at Spirits Come Alive Muskoka Heritage Place’s pioneer village in Huntsville is reputed to be one of Muskoka’s most spirit-populated places.
12 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
Photograph: Gail Lawrence
Downtown Huntsville hosts first-ever Macaroni Festival
The Huntsville Hospital Auxiliary Autumn House Tour will give you an opportunity to have a peek inside some of the area’s homes and raise money for much-needed hospital equipment at the same time. Thus, it’s the perfect venue for Spirits Come Alive, an evening exploration of the haunted history of the recreated buildings and all their spooky tales with writers Maria Da Silva and Andrew Hind, authors of Cottage Country Ghosts and Haunted Ontario Lakes. It happens on the evening of Sept. 15, as it’s getting dark. As the organizers say: “If you don’t feel chills during this event, check your pulse; you may already be dead!” Call the Heritage Place directly to book. muskokaheritageplace.org
Huntsville Fall Fair features Western horse competitions On the weekend of September 21 to 23, it’s Huntsville’s turn to have its fall fair. Look for midway rides, live music and competitions in every imaginable category for adults and kids including heaviest giant pumpkin, tallest sunflower, photography, artwork, fibre arts, poultry, rabbits and much more. Skilled riders will challenge
www.huntsvillefallfair.com
located on water or on a farm, and with varying styles of renovation and décor that will uplift and inspire you. Get tickets online, at Castle Antiques, Trophies and Engraving or at the hospital gift shop. tickets.algonquintheatre.ca/ TheatreManager/1tmEvent/tmEvent1312.html
40th annual studio tour is a must-see event
Beautiful houses are opened to benefit Huntsville Hospital You’ll get the opportunity to visit six beautiful houses in the Huntsville/Port Sydney area as well as enjoy an elegant lunch on September 22 at the Port Sydney Community Hall, all to aid the purchase of much-needed equipment and services for patients at Huntsville District Memorial Hospital. You can visit the houses in the Huntsville Hospital Auxiliary Fundraiser Autumn House Tour in any order, and you’ll see gorgeous residences, both historical and new,
Forty years ago, Muskoka sculptor Richard Green and some of his artistic colleagues decided meeting artists in their natural surroundings, while in the act of creation, would engender the deepest appreciation for art. Thus, the studio tour concept was founded. It has since spread throughout North America. Yes, the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour was the very first studio tour, and it continues to annually invite thousands to visit Muskoka’s finest artists and craftspeople in Muskoka’s most beautiful and welcoming studios. This year, it happens on the weekends of September 22
Photograph: Paul Bennett for Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour
themselves and each other at horsemanship contests such as barrel racing, stake racing, an egg and spoon race and Extreme Cowboy. You can even try your hand at excavator operating in a tire-stacking contest that is always fun to watch. See the website for full listings.
Bonnie Bews will be among artisans who will be welcoming the public to their homes and cottages for the 40th annual Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour – the first such tour of its kind in Canada. to 23 and 29 to 30, and is not to be missed. You can also catch the tail end of a special arts and crafts exhibition celebrating the Tour’s 40th anniversary and its storied history at the Chapel Gallery in Bracebridge, as it runs till September 7. muskokaautumnstudiotour.com
100% Canadian Artists • Large Original Paintings • Whimsical Sculptures • Hand made wood bowls, pottery & jewelry 111 Medora St. (Hwy 118 West.) Port Carling, Muskoka 705 765 7474 www.redcanoegallery.com Celebrating 25 years in Muskoka (parking at rear) Painting by Paul Garbett, 72”- xoil48” n.yanaky - booth’s rock
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 13
Photograph: Johnston's Cranberry Marsh & Muskoka Lakes Winery
September 22 to October 31 is the season for harvesting the deliciously tart red berries at Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh and Muskoka Lakes Winery, near Bala
Experience more than the cranberry harvest at Johnston’s marsh Muskoka is cranberry country and September 22 to October 31 is the season for harvesting the deliciously tart red
berries. At Johnston’s Cranberry Marsh and Muskoka Lakes Winery, near Bala, it’s not just about picking 300,000 to 400,000 pounds of berries but also daily harvest and Bog-to-Bottle tours, wine tasting, cranberry goodies sampling, wine and cheese, trail hikes, geocaching, kids’ activities and on the weekends, all-day wagon tours,
helicopter rides and the Cranberry Plunge (see website for dates and details). cranberry.ca
Marketing genius Terry O’Reilly shares his expertise in Huntsville Business owners and budding entrepreneurs take note: one of Canada’s most successful marketing minds is coming to educate and entertain you September 27 at the Algonquin Theatre during “Mixing Business with Pleasure: An Evening with Terry O’Reilly.” Combining expertise gained from his 30-year marketing career with passion and humour, this author and popular radio-show host will talk about the power of big ideas, the thinking behind effective campaigns, out-of-the-box strategies, why branding matters, how to create an identity and how to cut through the data smog with concepts that are impossible to ignore. tickets.algonquintheatre.ca/TheatreManager/1/tmEvent/ tmEvent1317.html
excelrailings.ca 705-646-2508
14 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
Tour iconic institutions at Doors Open Gravenhurst Doors Open Ontario is a province-wide educational event in which Gravenhurst has been participating since 2010. On Sept. 29, you’ll be able to visit and tour 10 important sites, old and new, when they throw open their doors: Albion Hotel, Beyond the Painted Door, Gravenhurst Ambulance Station, Gravenhurst Opera House, Gravenhurst Public Library, Heritage Boatworks, Muskoka Wharf (ship and boat building), Muskoka Airport, Sawdust City Brewery and Southwood Church. Come on in, find out how these institutions work or build, and learn all about their fascinating histories. doorsopenontario.on.ca/en/gravenhurst
Port Carling Museum’s Culture Days puts you in the picture September 29 and 30 are 2018’s Culture Days at Muskoka Lakes Museum in Port Carling. It’s always an interesting event and also part of an Ontario-wide celebration. While it’s always a journey into Muskoka’s past at the museum, this weekend it’ll be more like time travelling. Try participating in a “Put Yourself in the Picture” exercise designed to explore local heritage through old postcards and modern photography. More details to follow, check the website or call 705-765-5367. mlmuseum.com
Muskoka weekend is brimming with happenings There are all sorts of cultural happenings planned for September 28 to 30 in Huntsville and elsewhere in Muskoka. Here’s a sampling: take a selfie with Tom Thomson, Huntsville Sports Memorabilia, Group of Seven Outdoor Gallery, Work and Play: Tool or Instrument, news beats with YourTV and Hunter’s Bay Radio, Finding Your Family
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September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 15
History, Cops on the Beat on the Street, a colouring contest at West Side Fish and Chips, and umpteen art workshops, demonstrations and exhibitions. Visit the website, search by region and select “Muskoka” for a full listing. on.culturedays.ca
The true model train enthusiast doesn’t just have a miniature train putt putting around a small loop of track. The true model train enthusiast creates a massive diorama with miniature landscapes, buildings, vegetation and trains, so true to life that there’s even dirt in the right places, and photos of his work look close to the real thing. You’ll be able to see 20 layouts like this during the 14th Annual Muskoka and Simcoe County Model Railroad Layout Tour, The Muskokian. It happens on September 30 at 20 locations around
Photograph: Brian Searles
Model train fans will love these realistic layouts
The 14th annual Muskoka and Simcoe County Model Railroad Layout Tour, The Muskokian, will provide enthusiasts the opportunity to view dioramas at 20 locations around Muskoka September 30. Muskoka. Visit the website to see pics and videos to whet your appetite, then download the guidebook with GPS-friendly maps.
thank you.
Admission by donation, all proceeds to Salvation Army food banks. www.model-railroad-infoguy.com/muskoka-tour.html
South Muskoka Hospital Foundation thanks the following donors who supported the Bed & Monitor campaign. (listed in alphabetical order)
George and Avis Boddington
Mark and Patricia Gidley
Brock Napier
David Burrows
Greystone Project Management
P. Medley & Sons Ltd.
Call of the Wild Sanitation
Paul and Shirley Hammond
George and Alana Reid
Canadian Tire Store (Bracebridge)
Home Building Centre (Gravenhurst)
Rocky Island Tire Co.
Casey Contracting Muskoka Ltd.
Robert and Lynn Jacob
Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 161
Ungad and Stephanie Rickard
John and Thelma Jarvis
Chadda
(Bracebridge)
Kawartha Credit Union
Tom and Barbara J. Ryder
James and Edna Claydon
Pete Laurence
Morley and Dawn Stephen
Don and Helen Coates
Bruce and Keltie Law
The Sam Yakubowicz Family
Bill and Pat Collie
Lions Club of Port Carling
Dan Cornacchia
Michael and Margaret Michalski
True North Log Homes
Judith Crockford
Gary and Judy Moore
R. Murray Walker
John and Liz Curran
William Moore - Indianhead Harbour
Walkers Point Marina
Gary and Susan Elliott
Muskoka Chrysler Sales
Weismiller Tim-Br Mart
Estate of Murray and Joan Dauphin
Muskoka Mechanical Services
Wes Finch & Sons Excavating Ltd.
Fixtures Plumbing & Hardware
Muskoka Timber Mills
Windermere Women’s Institute
Foundation
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16 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018 South Muskoka
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Small Community
Raises Big Funds
The small, largely seasonal resident community of Windermere plays host to an incredibly successful Terry Fox Run each year. In 2000, Bev Longhurst, an employee at Windermere House, learned her daughter had been diagnosed with cancer. Longhurst, with support from her co-workers, planned and held the first Terry Fox Run in Windermere, with every dollar raised supporting cancer research. The event made $2,016 that year. The next year, and every year since, Allen and Linda Edwards have been involved in planning the event. Each year, the committee of
18 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
eight or nine connects with local businesses for donations and plans a full day of activities, including a silent auction, games and face painting for kids, and a barbecue with live music to engage the entire community in the event. The silent auction is set up two weeks before the event at the Port Carling Public Library for anyone to place bids. Successful auction bidders are announced at the end of the run. The dedication and community spirit of the organizing team, as well as the participants and supporters have made the Windermere Terry Fox Run one of the top 10 events for money raised per capita. In 2017, the event raised $27,143.25 and to date, since 2000, the Windermere Terry Fox Run has contributed $351,903.70 to cancer research. This year, participants will head to the Windermere Village Hall on Sunday, September 16 to walk, run or cycle the 18th annual Windermere Terry Fox Run. Registration opens at 8:15 a.m. with the event kicking off at 9:00 a.m. Participants must register and
Photograph: Jennifer Jackson
Article by Meghan Smith
The organizers of the Windermere Terry Fox Run have included events for the entire community. It has become one of the largest fundraisers on a per capita basis. hand in their pledges and choose their distance. Participants can walk, run or cycle the five-kilometre route to the Windermere Fire Hall and back or the 10-kilometre route to Brackenrig Road and back. This year’s organizing team includes Bev Longhurst, the founding member, as well as her daughter and cancer survivor Jennifer Jackson. The team also includes Jackson’s husband Randy, the Edwards, Susan Marshall, John Roberts and Glenn O’Rourke. Not only do they organize the run, itself, but also a golf tournament in June and donation days at local businesses to increase their total funds donated to the cause.
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g n i t a r b e l e C y t i v i t a e r C I Article by Dawn Huddlestone
t was an inspired idea: encourage people to enjoy the fall colours of Muskoka while touring the studios of some of the artists who call this area home. Forty years ago, sculptor Richard Green broached the concept to some artist friends. Why not invite people into local studios where they could see artists at work and ask them questions about their process and their tools and their inspiration? Potters Jon Partridge and Rick Vail, metal sculptors Wayne Church and Hilary Clark Cole, stained glass artist Charles Knapp, photographer Lyle McIntyre, and painters Michael Cleary, Richard Karon and Paul Rainey were all on board and the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour (MAST) was born. But none of them could have had any inkling at the time just how good an idea it would turn out to be. Almost 100 artists have participated in the tour since 1979 and many tens of thousands of people have visited their studios. “To think back to 40 years ago, there was an art community but nothing like it is today,” says glass painter Bonnie Bews, who has been part of the tour since 2006. “It’s amazing that it’s still going strong. More and more artists are coming to the area. I guess it’s because of the rustic beauty and peacefulness that perhaps artists need.” Like all of the artists on the tour, Bews enjoys opening up her studio to share what’s so often done in solitude. “At first I didn’t think I could do it, having someone over my shoulder watching me work. But I like to see when people come in and don’t know what to expect. Sometimes people get emotional. It’s nice when they make a connection with your art pieces.”
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That personal connection has contributed to both the tour’s success and its longevity. Like all good things, it’s been copied many times over. Although the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour was the first of its kind in
Canada, imitators have sprung up across the country over the years, not all of them opening up studios and not all committed to the same goal of providing education in the artistic process.
Photograph: MAST photographs by Paul Bennett
MUSKOKA AUTUMN STUDIO TOUR TURNS 40 Above: Potter Jon Partridge is the only member of the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour to have taken part throughout the entire 40 years of the event. Left: Partridge’s showroom, studio and grounds are open to the public during the two weekends of the annual tour.
“(Richard) wanted the artists to be in their studios working and explaining their process, and we have held true to that idea all these years,” says painter Catherine O’Mara. This will be her 19th year on the tour. “He was
wanting to make a successful way for artists to be able to live in Muskoka, sell their work, and not have to take it to Toronto and pay a gallery to sell it for them. “It was absolutely a great concept and it
has worked beautifully in Muskoka, this marrying of people coming to see the beautiful colours of fall on a driving tour where they’re also stopping and being invited into artists’ studios.” Although some of each artists’ works are usually available for sale at their individual studios, sales are discrete so that the educational focus of the tour isn’t undermined. “Having people come to your studio is a very personal way to show your work,” says O’Mara. “You work all year, usually in isolation, so it’s a nice time to meet the public and for them to see what you do.” There have been a few changes over the years. Some artists have come and gone, and the work of those who participate for consecutive tours has evolved or expanded, so even visitors who return, again and again, see something different each time. And there is much to see. So much that the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour expanded to encompass two weekends instead of its original one to give people more opportunity to get to the studios in all corners of Muskoka. This 40th year is doubly special. Not only is it an accomplishment on its own – to have remained popular despite rising gas prices and the advent of readily accessible digital entertainment – it’s also the year earmarked
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 21
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Photograph: MAST photograph by Paul Bennett
Painting with acrylics, artist Wendy Moses captures nature by focusing on abstracted flowers and landscapes that are featured at The Alexandra Luke Gallery. for its entire 40 years. He feels that part of its success is due to the glimpse it offers into the lifestyle of an artist. “People sometimes romanticize it,” he says. “They are always intrigued.” And sometimes they find it’s not quite what they expected. Yes, it can seem like an idyllic life – and in many ways it is – to be an artist with
Photograph: MAST photograph by Paul Bennett
“It’s a great tour, it’s lots of fun and everybody works hard towards it,” says O’Mara. “We don’t get to see each other because we are all so spread out. (This year’s shows) are a nice time for us to get together and see each other’s work.” Jon Partridge, a potter, is the only artist who has been on the tour
Photograph: Marni Martin photograph by Mark Reeder
for the opening of a time capsule created for the tour’s 20th anniversary. The MAST time capsule – a wooden box built by furniture maker Stephen Sprague and carved by Bill Hunnisett – contains a book about the tour that was created for the occasion along with small works by each of the artists who were on the tour that year. The capsule was opened at the Chapel Gallery in Bracebridge where it was locked shut 20 years ago and its contents will be displayed in a special show at the gallery with works from the 21 artists participating in the 40th anniversary tour. It runs until September 8, 2018. An earlier three-month exhibit was hosted at the Canada Summit Centre in Huntsville, this summer, to showcase both current and past artists, and there was a weekend show at the Muskoka Discovery Centre in Gravenhurst in August. A show is an unusual undertaking for the MAST artists as a whole. Usually, they are in their studios to welcome visitors throughout the tour and spend much of the rest of the year focused on their own work.
Left: Uniting ancient traditions of weaving with contemporary techniques, Marni Martin creates tapestries and woven wearables. Above: Hinterglas artist Bonnie Bews enjoys opening her studio to share what is so often done in solitude. September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 23
could lose the work if don’t get to it.” As someone who works in a multi-stage medium, Partridge has found that videos and displays help to illustrate the long process involved in getting to a finished piece for visitors on the tour. “Because there are so many steps to get to the finished product, we produced a 45-minute video,” he says. The video is supplemented with a display that includes a
Multi-talented artist Jim Carter, who has developed a following for his cherry wood boards, has returned to blacksmithing and is making functional ironwork pieces. 24 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
Photograph: MAST photographs by Paul Bennett
a studio tucked away down a rural road, inspired by the scenery and guided by whim. But in reality, artists put in long hours working to perfect their craft. “Most artists work 12 hours a day, seven days a week,” says Partridge. “If I have work on the go, it’s kind of like having an infant and it starts crying in the middle of the night. You can’t just say ‘it can wait until the morning.’ I have to address it at the time and
piece fresh off the potter’s wheel, one that has been fired once in a kiln, one with glaze applied, and finally the finished product. It’s a conversation starter, both for those who are interested in the art and those who can find a way to relate it to their own life. “Sometimes people may not understand the process but they get interested in the materials,” explains Partridge. He might talk with someone who has an interest in science about the chemistry of the glazes or the expansion and contraction of the clay, or with someone who can see the similarities in Partridge’s process to another interest like baking. “It’s engaging the public when they come through in a broad range of things. I enable the conversation which gives them a better appreciation for what I do, or even for when they are just looking at pottery in a store.” There are no stupid questions, he adds. “It’s all innocent. They want to understand and the more I talk the more questions I’ll get. Ask me any question, it doesn’t matter.” The Muskoka Autumn Studio tour runs on September 22 to 23 and September 29 to 30 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day. Learn more at muskokaautumnstudiotour. com.
Photograph: MAST photographs by Paul Bennett
Potter Jon Partridge feels part of the success of the studio tour is the glimpse it offers into the lifestyle of an artist. Partridge welcomes the opportunity to answer questions from visitors.
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Article by J. Patrick Boyer For a full decade, Gravenhurst’s movers and shakers succeeded in holding onto their competitive advantage, combining Muskoka’s railway terminus and steamship harbour at the foot of Lake Muskoka. A letter between lumbermen and the railroad company confirmed there’d be no northern extension
(that is, to Bracebridge and beyond) for 10 years. Straddling the culmination of one transportation system (steam trains) and the starting point of another (steam boats) gave the town a monopoly lock on economic prosperity. Gravenhurst from 1875 thrived as a transshipment centre for people and goods. Beneficiaries of this transfer business – to and from horse-drawn coaches and wagons travelling up and down Muskoka Road year-round and, during navigation season, adding steamships plying to and from Bracebridge, Bala, Port Photograph: Muskoka Discovery Centre Archives
T
he current interest in restoring passenger rail service to Muskoka, specifically the Northlander between Toronto and Cochrane with stops at Gravenhurst, Bracebridge and Huntsville, is sparked by travellers’ needs and aching feelings of loss. This is not new. The saga of railways in our district is a tale of beginnings and endings. The first train service to Muskoka crossed into Morrison Township at Severn Bridge. Railway service reached Gravenhurst, with a spur line out to Muskoka Wharf, by late 1875. Then everything stopped.
A Time-Trapped Saga
jobs and mountains of sawdust. Preventing extension of the railway northward was only a temporary victory for the district’s senior town because Muskoka, inextricably part of a larger community, was moved by larger forces. In 1871, British Columbia agreed to join Confederation if a
transcontinental railroad linked east and west. Prime Minister John Macdonald wanted an “all-Canadian” route. Though costing more than a rail line running south of Lake Superior through Wisconsin and Minnesota to circumvent the Canadian Shield, it would ensure national security and independence. But the “Pacific Scandal” over the governing Conservatives getting secret kickbacks from the railway contractors to finance election campaigns drove Macdonald from office. Canada’s first Liberal Prime Minister, Alexander Mackenzie, elected in 1874, took Photograph: Boyer Family Archives
Carling, Windermere and Rosseau – were Gravenhurst’s hotels, taverns, stores, livery stables, blacksmiths, warehouses, teamsters, captains, crews, engineers and labourers. Within just two years, 2,800 tons of rail freight was arriving each summer at Muskoka Wharf and A.P. Cockburn, shrewd owner of steamships and lumbering operations, gleefully built more warehouse sheds to accommodate rapidly rising storage needs. Muskoka lumbermen, with rail connections to outside markets and a decade of fixed operations, encircled Gravenhurst Bay with saw mills, new prosperity, more
Photograph: Muskoka Discovery Centre Archives
CPR trains connected with steamships at Barnsdale’s Lake Joseph Wharf. This is where Prime Minister Robert Borden hurriedly departed Muskoka on July 30, 1914, returning to Ottawa by train as world war erupted. Bottom Left: Lake Joseph Station, as seen from the bow of steamship Sagamo, which was docking just as a southbound CNOR train pulls in. The shop on the dock not only sold souvenirs but train tickets and boat fares. Bottom Right: After a decade, Gravenhurst’s monopoly as a transit hub was broken when rail service reached Bracebridge. In 1885, nine workers posed by their newly built bridge over the town’s North Falls, four on the lower iron crosspieces, five on or by the foreground stumps.
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up the railway challenge. His idea was to not lay down a single uninterrupted track but instead run a series of rail lines between intermediate water bodies, as proposed by the Department of Railways and Canals, whose leading lights saw how canal systems made use of available rivers and lakes. Thus, in Muskoka, with the railway already built to Gravenhurst, Mackenzie’s plan was that the next leg would be by steamship to the top of Lake Rosseau, so railway tracks would only need to run from there to the shore of Lake Nipissing, where another transfer could leap ahead on that lake to the next section of track beyond. This plan took no account of transshipment costs (in time, money and inconvenience) at each leg of this cross-Canada relay line. Nothing was said about cost-savings from building less track being gobbled up buying more trains and engines for each of the stranded short segments, or even how to transport the heavy rolling stock, especially the engines, to them. Nor did the Liberal plan address frozen lakes in winter. At their next opportunity, in 1878, voters returned Macdonald to office to resume his political drive for the Canadian Pacific Railway and by 1885 it bound the country together “from sea to shining sea.” These larger forces kick-started Muskoka’s next railroad phase. Train service north from Gravenhurst reached Bracebridge that same year, with the 10-year moratorium ended and a big push underway to join other rail lines (planned or being built) to Baysville, through Algonquin Park for lumbering, and especially connecting with Ottawa Valley transcontinental lines (coming from the Maritimes through Quebec) at North Bay. It seemed Muskoka could become a major railway hub or at least a main artery between Canada’s transcontinental and northern routes and southern Ontario, and northern United States rail lines. From 1885, Bracebridge started a new era of prosperity, linked directly by rail to the larger universe. Cow hides from distant Argentina, after reaching Halifax by ship, arrived at the town’s two sprawling leather tanneries. Woollen products from Henry Bird’s mill, as well as “Muskoka Lamb,” and more lumber, flowed readily to Canadian, American and British Empire markets.
Photograph: Muskoka Discovery Centre Archives
These ten navvies, working near Torrance in 1907 on the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway’s line, were typical of crews maintaining safe tracks.
Further north, at the west side of Lake Vernon, Hoodstown bustled along well laid out streets with good homes, two hotels, three churches, a livery stable and smithy, three general stores and post office. Founder Charles Hood had insider information that a planned railway would cause his town to surge to even greater prosperity. However, a different company built its rail line to the east, crossing the Muskoka River at the narrow point where John Hunt had started his settlement. The route was well chosen, because at Huntsville the railway intersected the river’s connections to the entire north Muskoka lakes system. This further round of endings and beginnings in Muskoka’s railway saga saw Hoodstown empty out and Huntsville emerge as Muskoka’s largest town, prospering on leather tanning, lumber milling and vacationing – each directly
Photograph: Muskoka Discovery Centre Archives
Railway tracks bringing vacationers from southern Ontario and the United States to Muskoka had, all the while, inaugurated a transformative stage in district life. Hunting parties, fishing groups and individuals seeking a northern experience found all they hoped for on the district’s scenic southern edge of the Canadian Shield – despite the ugly scars of clear-cutting forestry – and the Muskoka Cure was born. Early railway advertisements promoted Muskoka as “A woodland region abounding in lakes and streams, affording every variety of fishing and game – black bass, rock bass, pickerel, maskinonge, brook and salmon trout. Sportsmen can obtain on the spot guides, boats and canoes to all points. Excellent summer hotels at Bracebridge, Port Carling, Rosseau, Port Cockburn.” Farmers’ homesteads abutting lakefronts soon morphed into hostelries, then lodges, next resorts. By 1889, when the rail line was pushed through to Huntsville, its route caused more beginnings and endings. Thriving Port Sydney boasted a gristmill, oatmeal mill, sawmill, sash factory, cheese factory, hotel accommodations and was home port of the steamer Northern, running passengers and freight between Mary Lake, Huntsville and Hoodstown. The village was primed to become the centre for north Muskoka, with the railway coming through. But a change of route put the train service through the small settlement of Utterson, to its west, instead. Gaining a station, Utterson rose to new prominence while Port Sydney paled.
linked to rail service. Politics and economics meshed with bold dreams and hard choices in Muskoka’s ever-changing railway landscape, as the train to Baysville reminds us. The Bracebridge and Trading Lake Railway Company had been incorporated, its directors elected and officers chosen, and start-up money provided by the Ontario Government, to not only run a line 14 miles east to Baysville but also 10 miles west to Beaumaris, linking all major lake systems with an east-west line on which Bracebridge, already central in the district, would be hub. Beaumaris Wharf with its train terminal would give Muskoka Wharf at Gravenhurst competition, while the railway terminal at Baysville Wharf would pull that hinterland into Bracebridge’s orbit as well. Another company, the Huntsville and Lake of Bays Navigation (Railway) Company was also incorporated to link the Grand Trunk Railway system with Lake of Bays as “gateway to the tourists’ and hunters’ paradise.” Other railroad companies, too, were proposing train service to Baysville, one of them a radial line from Gravenhurst. In March 1915, Baysville’s correspondent for the Bracebridge Gazette touted a new tourist resort, the busy lumber mill and the coming of hydro-electricity, only to sideline such progress by concluding “but the railroad is what we’ve been waiting for, for the last 20 years.” Despite early work clearing the roadbed
A northbound train pulls in to Bracebridge – engine, coal car, mail car, passenger cars and freight cars. A horse-drawn wagon stands ready. Rail commerce includes parcels, luggage and milk cans for farmers up the line who supply the town’s dairy and its cheese factory. September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 29
Photograph: Muskoka Discovery Centre Archives
An example of Muskoka’s harmonious integration of trains and steamships, the swing bridge at Bala Park accommodated both. for the Bracebridge-Baysville line, it remained a phantom but propelled action from Huntsville. After discovering a canal for steamboats could not economically be built between Lake of Bays (Trading Lake) and Peninsula Lake, the company fashioned the world’s shortest commercial railway instead. Humorously dubbed “The Portage Flyer” because it crawled so slowly – passengers enjoyed descending to pick wild strawberries alongside the steeply ascending
track then remounting to struggling “Flyer” to eat them – the railway began operating between North Portage and South Portage in 1904. On the west side of the district, meanwhile, the village of Bala was booming, thanks to railways operating with commutertrain frequency. In 1907, the Canadian Pacific Railway opened a vacationers’ “summer station,” complete with freight elevator, to supplement its year-round
station further up the line. By the 1920s, the CPR was running four trains in and out of Bala every day during the summer. Competitor CNOR (Canadian Northern Ontario Railway) was also serving Bala, with its own summer schedule to Bala Park Island. This excellent train service brought the big name entertainers to happily perform at Bala. With so many musicians, tourists and cottagers detraining from the United States, Ottawa deemed Bala a port-
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Photograph: Muskoka Discovery Centre Archives
of-entry and opened a convenient customs clearing house. When highways and automobiles ousted passenger trains in the 1950s, weekend train service to Bala continued until 1963. Train tourism continued to benefit north Muskoka, too. Enterprising Huntsville resort operators extended the vacation season by actively promoting special ski excursion trains from the United States. Even so, as the postwar era advanced, the Government of Canada put its resources into civil aviation with new and bigger airports. The Government of Ontario put its resources into bigger and better highways, and a vast transcontinental country with few people discovered it was no longer possible to sustain three completely different transportation systems for rail, road and air. Canada’s canal systems had already come to its end, except for tourism. Ottawa heavily subsidized passenger rail travel until, in the 1980s, Transport Minister Don Mazankowski, repeating his mantra “Use it or lose it!” reduced or eliminated passenger service. As an MP at the time, a constituent upbraided me about how terrible this was. I explained that a train traveller spent $18 for a ticket, while taxpayers topped up the rest of its $640 actual cost. “But the trains are special,” she protested. “My husband and I went to Quebec City by train for our honeymoon!” “When was that?” “1948.” “Have you been on a train since?” Sotto voce: “No.” Mail service by train is another timetrapped element in this saga. Railway and shipping companies vied for postal contracts. At least twice a day (except Sundays), trains through Muskoka included mail cars on which postal
workers sorted mail whilst in transit, dropping off at Gravenhurst, Bracebridge and Huntsville the letters, subscription newspapers and parcels for each community and its hinterland post offices, picking up large canvas bags of outgoing mail. Mail service to Muskoka’s main lakes was twice a day. The Huntsville and Lake of Bays Navigation Company got the mail contracts for Muskoka’s upper lakes and the Gravenhurst Steamships line the contract to pick up and deliver mail, morning and afternoon during navigation season, to communities and resorts around lakes Muskoka, Rosseau and Joseph – explaining why the reinstated Segwun has the designation “Royal Mail Ship,” or RMS Segwun. Those days, too, are gone, not to return. Passengers aboard the Segwun today can personally send and receive mail 24 hours a day, to and from anywhere in the world, from a personal hand-held device. These beginnings and endings for railway passenger and mail services exclude freight train service, which continues to prosper. Today, the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission is drawing more freight offhighway onto rail, from new multi-modal yards in Timmins and Cochrane for industrial clients, to increasing grain shipments from Temiskaming’s farming communities. Should Ontario’s Ford Government mandate the commission to reinstate the Northland’s full passenger service, heritageconscious Gravenhurst has its attractive train station ready.
North Muskoka prospered even more when “the world shortest commercial railway” began operating between North Portage on Peninsula Lake and South Portage on Lake of Bays. The “Portage Flyer” links with steamships – and automobiles, as the age of steam melds into the era of the internal combustion engine.
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 31
32 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 33
Nature inspires
Sculptures created with permanence
Article by Meghan Smith / Photography by Scott Turnbull
T
he story of a piece of art begins far before anyone views it in a gallery, admires the piece at an exhibit and even before it’s seen, complete, in an artist’s studio. The story of a work of art begins the moment the artist sees the piece in their mind, complete or incomplete. The journey of bringing that vision to reality often takes months, or even years, filled with trial and error, success and failure and hours of adjustment and tweaking. “As far as process goes, I seem to have a head full of ideas and thoughts all the time that I translate three-dimensionally into sculpture,” explains Hilary Clark Cole. “I can and do draw but it’s already finished three-dimensionally in my head, so I’m going backwards if I do a drawing. I’ve already worked around it in my brain and I think in pictures, so I see it finished.” Most commonly, artists express their vision in traditional art mediums such as sculpted clay or paint on canvas. Not so, Hilary Clark Cole. She creates one-of-a-kind steel and cast bronze sculptures, inspired by the animals, plants and surroundings of her Muskoka home; the blueblack wings of a crow shining in the sunlight, the grace of a windswept pine growing from granite, a pair of mallard ducks, synchronized in flight, a luna moth worshipping its namesake moon. These are only a sampling of the massive body of work Clark Cole has created. Clark Cole’s process builds a piece from the inside out, from the skeletal armature outward to include various finishes, colours and textures.
There are two different kinds of sculpture. One approach begins from the inside working outward to create first a skeleton or frame and continuing to form the finished piece. The second approach is starting with a block of material – granite, wax, clay or another medium – and working inward, chipping off pieces until the sculpture is revealed by the artist. The ability to create such variety in her artwork with a single medium speaks to the affinity Clark Cole has for the material and her painstaking attention to detail. She develops the armature – the metal framework for the sculpture – with the correct pose and dimensions, and scales up for the life-sized version. “A lot of sculptors who work in other media will use a steel armature to support whatever else they’re doing but, in my case, I just keep going right to the outside with steel,” explains Clark Cole. “With welding, that’s really what you do and how you build things.” The heart of Clark Cole’s body of work is her thoughtfulness in researching the figure she’s choosing to depict as well as what materials can best showcase the desired outcome. For cast bronze sculptures and larger steel sculptures, Clark Cole develops a maquette – a sculptor’s small, preliminary model or sketch – created from microcrystalline wax. Maquettes are built by hand, often using the same material the final sculpture will be in. Clark Cole may spend months creating a maquette, in either steel or wax, before officially beginning a new piece. “I literally just start,” says Clark Cole. “If I’m doing a big piece, like the Chestnut Filly, I’m not going to commit a year of my life to something that’s incorrect. I have to make sure I’ve solved all the problems beforehand with the maquette and then I can just work.”
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 35
Above: Sculptor Hilary Clark Cole uses a plasma cutter to create shapes for one of her projects. Below: Loona is a wall sculpture and is Clark Cole’s interpretation of a loon in a female form. “What I do when I begin with the maquette is I’m working out the proportions, the pose, the details in whatever the sculpture is and then I use that as my model,” says Clark Cole. “The lifesize sculpture is about six times the size of the maquette. All of the research, really, is in the maquette.” More than just working in steel, Clark Cole’s ability to see an entire piece, including the fine details, lends authenticity to her art. Whether it’s the flow of hair down a girl’s back or each individual feather on a crow, that attention to detail began early on in her life. “When I think back, it’s just so obvious I was thinking 3D all the time as I grew up,” says Clark Cole. “When I was a little kid, I used to make little people
36 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
with garden materials, like a poppy seed pod for a head, and then keep the stem and put on little arms and legs and pieces of cedar. I was always bringing stuff that I could carry in my hands that were threedimensional.” Since attending the Ontario College of Art where she graduated in 1969, Clark Cole has worked in various welded steel. She has left behind her childhood use of natural objects and instead is drawing on her attention to detail to bring nature into her welding. “The program I was in was called material arts which was pottery, weaving and metal arts, with the metal arts being jewelry,” says Clark Cole. “The biggest you got was a small vessel out of silver. I just kept going into the welding shop and watching what they were doing and going in after hours to start on things.” Her interest in the welding shop and the use of steel led Clark Cole to switch to the
sculpture department and refocus her studies. She was allowed into the welding shop a year earlier than others in her stream, thanks to a teacher who recognized her talent. Clark Cole learned the use of equipment and skills not typical of women in the 1960s. Although unaware when she began working with welding as her expression of art, metalwork is in her genes. After 15 years working with metals, Clark Cole discovered her grandfather had been a blacksmith. “It’s a very interesting medium,” explains Clark Cole. “I feel like nothing is impossible with steel. You can make it look soft like a feather or you can make it look hard, like I’ve done armadillos and turtles and things like that. They just work. It’s an amazing medium.” The works of art Clark Cole breathes life into in her welding studio are significant dedications of time and research. Each piece, particularly her large welded pieces, is a careful construction of artistic vision. Welding does not allow for the quick stroke of a pencil or paint brush to define form. Welded steel sculptures require careful,
thoughtful planning and knowledge of the many ways to manipulate the medium. “I consider life drawing really essential for my learning,” shares Clark Cole. “I’m exploring the human figure all the time. I’ve got to make sure I have my chops. When I talk about sculpture being from the inside out, I talk about a skeletal structure and I have to know anatomy. I have to know proportions. I have to know the muscles and where they attach, and what they do when they flex and all of that. That applies to animals and people, so I have to constantly be thinking inside, as well as outside.” The majority of Clark Cole’s sculptures are made with Cor-Ten steel, a nickel steel that is also referred to as weathering steel. The steel will weather to a certain point but does not corrode. “It’s perfect for someone like me who is doing one-of-a-kind pieces, that are often displayed outdoors,” says Clark Cole. Clark Cole also brings copper, bronze and plate metal into her pieces. Cor-Ten is found mostly in industrial uses but Clark Cole prefers the strength and lasting power of steel to other metals. “Some things just work beautifully in steel,” says Clark Cole. “I do tend to get a lot of my ideas when I’m working and then develop from there. I respond to the material very strongly.” In entering Clark Cole’s studio, one does not find the typical look of an artist’s workspace. Although significantly downsized thanks to technological improvements, machinery and work benches line the walls. What are traditionally seen as industrial tools, like an oxy-acetylene torch, plasma cutter and mig & flux welder, are kept easily accessible and tidy in Clark Cole’s studio. Two Beverly shears sit in the open space of the studio floor for cutting and manipulating all kinds of metals, and numerous hand tools wait to be used on work benches. “All these machines I’m using, used to be huge room-sized, industrial machines and now they’re scaled down for a little shop like mine,” explains Clark Cole. “People often ask if I do my own welding because they think of that big industrial machinery but this is all perfectly sized for my use.” Bronze pieces are cast at a foundry and can be scaled up significantly or remain at
the same size. Once the first mould is cast, bronze pieces can be replicated infinitely. However, artists working in this medium usually set a specific run, in order to maintain the uniqueness and value of the sculpture. “Sculpture doesn’t just spring out of the ground,” explains Clark Cole. “The craftsmanship at a foundry is exquisite.” A mould crafted at a foundry requires precision and attention to detail. The wax sculpture is used to create a form with multiple channels into the form. Molten bronze is carefully added to the form in order to melt the wax figure and create a bronze sculpture in its place. Clark Cole crafts eye-catching and moving sculptures, such as her full-size standing woman in a suit of armour; Ironica. Clark Cole documented Ironica’s progress and crafting on her website weekly, including photos, from the skeletal structure to the day she finished. “She has a heart,” says Clark Cole. “All of my big sculptures have hearts. Hers is metal, like the rest of her but she has it.” It matters little whether Clark Cole’s vision is small or large in working her craft. Each and every piece in her vast collection showcases her intricate knowledge of her subject matter, using hand tools to create the exact rounding of a leaf or the hammering of armour. Beyond her knowledge, Clark Cole’s heart is evident in each piece, as is her love for her Muskoka home and all its natural splendour. “Muskoka is the best place in the world, really,” says Clark Cole. “There are so many artists here in Muskoka. I may be
considered one of the more established ones but there’s so many new people starting out. It’s interesting how a lot of rural communities end up becoming art colonies.” A sculptor who goes beyond just making a piece of artwork, Clark Cole enjoys sharing her studio space with neighbours – adults and children alike. Often, local children visit the studio and leave with a handcrafted
Since refocusing her studies at the Ontario College of Art in the late 1960s, Hilary Clark Cole has used equipment such as Beverly shears for cutting and manipulating all kinds of metals.
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 37
decorative spoon, thanks to Clark Cole’s instruction and generosity in sharing her talent. The art community in Muskoka has grown significantly since Clark Cole first moved here over 40 years ago. She took part in the first Autumn Studio Tour when only 10 artists participated. Over the years, she has also remained involved with Muskoka Arts & Crafts, the over-arching organization for Muskoka artists. Clark Cole’s work graces both public spaces and private collections scattered throughout Muskoka and beyond. Permanent installations in the District of Muskoka Council Chambers, the Chapel Gallery, the Town of Bracebridge offices, the Torrance Barrens, the Bracebridge Sportsplex and Algonquin Park, all showcase Clark Cole’s vision, versatility and incredible talent. “I find that I gravitate to steel and its permanence,” says Clark Cole. “Although I like clay as a sculptural medium because it’s much more malleable and easy to work with, I stick to a material that I know is going to last In creating her works of fine art, Hilary Clark Cole uses what are traditionally seen as industrial tools, forever. Forever is good.” like an oxy-acetylene torch.
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Preserving THE RICH HERITAGE OF
Lake of Bays
Article by Judy Vanclieaf / Photography by Kelly Holinshead
W
hen you have an area as rich in heritage as Lake of Bays, preserving the pieces of its past and natural beauty is imperative to its future. This is what links us to the stories of our roots. They can include something treasured, like an old photograph of our grandparents picnicking at Langmaid's
40 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
Island, or a hand-drawn Ted Hungerford wall map of Lake of Bays, dating back to 1965. Perhaps it’s your late uncle’s sailor outfit when he was deckhand on Cameron Peck’s legendary Naiad. It is treasures like these we hold dear in our heart, that provide us with windows to our past and that we want to ensure are saved; so future generations can continue to enjoy them.
Lower Oxtongue River begins at Marsh’s Falls and runs all the way down into Lake of Bays. This beautiful part of the river is recognized by the District of Muskoka and the Township of Lake of Bays as an important natural heritage area. Also rich in cultural heritage, this area was once the traditional canoe portage for our First Nations to go around Marsh’s Falls. Lower Oxtongue River begins at Marsh’s For the Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation communities that surround the Lake of Bays. It’s the heritage foundation that creates Falls and runs all the way down into Lake of and its sister organization, the Lake of Bays Heritage Advisory Committee, the rivers, and enforces the policies while focusing more Bays. This beautiful part of the river is lakes and the land that surrounds them are on preserving the natural and structural recognized by the District of Muskoka and held in the same regard. There are aspects of aspects of the area. One of its objectives is to the Township of Lake of Bays as an important these bodies of land and water that represent educate within the communities by offering natural heritage area. Also rich in cultural the past and these organizations want to be nature programs. It is also a certified member heritage, this area was once the traditional sure they are preserved. While long-term of the Ontario Land Trust Alliance and is a canoe portage for the First Nations to go preservation is their main focus, often they registered charity, so tax receipts can be around Marsh’s Falls. Years after, it was where the first steamboat on Lake of Bays was built work alongside each other, doing what is best issued for donations. by Capt. George Marsh. for the Lake of Bays area. Judith Mills, president of Together, they are a the heritage foundation, is preservation powerhouse that focuses on the natural, the proud of what she feels is built and the cultural heritage one of the groups ongoing of the area. achievements. The Lake of Bays Heritage “Over a period of six Foundation began in 1985, years, we purchased three when Robin Cumine, contiguous properties on president of Lake of Bays the lower Oxtongue River,” Association at the time, came says Mills. “The 150 acres of up with the idea of creating a mostly wooded land and 6.5 foundation to preserve the km of shoreline on the lower area’s history. Since then, it Oxtongue River, is now has become an active nonprotected from development profit, community-based, and over use by ATV and registered charitable organizsnowmobiles. ation that is operated under a Nancy Tapley and Ruth Ross are both members of the Township of Lake of Bays “Volunteers also work board of directors by Heritage Advisory Committee, which advises the township council on matters of hard on freeing the wetlands volunteers from each of the conservation of built and natural heritage features. of an invasive species such as
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 41
Our health care future is bright — show your support for Muskoka’s two-site hospital An open letter to our communities, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) is working through Stage 1 Proposal planning, one of five distinct stages in the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s capital planning process for hospitals. Stage 1 has been a new chapter in MAHC’s planning for the future work and involves more detailed planning and analysis of potential models for the future, supported by a $1 million planning grant. This planning has been a collaborative process with many partners, including extensive input from all corners of our communities, led by the MAHC Capital Plan Development Task Force. On August 8, 2018, the Task Force presented its findings to the Board, supported by a 30-plus page report posted on our website. The Task Force’s recommendation was for a Two Acute Sites service delivery model. Following final deliberations, the Board endorsed the recommendation for Two Acute Sites, which replaces the 2015 recommendation for one hospital centrally located. This decision represents a major milestone and the halfway mark in the Stage 1 planning. The Two Acute Sites service delivery model includes a full range of emergency, inpatient and surgical services, 61 more inpatient beds including a new stroke rehabilitation unit, and also proposes the addition of MRI technology. The next step is for the Task Force to focus on the physical design of the Two Acute Sites model: how the sites are built through new construction or renovation (or a combination), where they are specifically sited, and how the community will pay for its share. Once that work is complete next year, the Two Acute Sites plan goes to the Ministry for approval for MAHC to continue on to the next stage in the lengthy capital planning process. Required investments in our buildings and medical equipment needs are significant today and will continue while the future planning work gets more refined over the next several years. A defined plan for the future is important to ensuring infrastructure investments are tailored so they best support the overall capital plan. We need your support today and in the future of our two-site hospital. Fundraising is critical to our ability to provide outstanding patient care today, tomorrow and in the future. On behalf of the MAHC Board, thank you for your continued support of our capital needs through donations to our Auxiliaries and Foundations. Thank you for your involvement in this planning process, your input and your support of this future direction. We hope the Two Acute Sites model is one that everyone can truly get behind, so that together we can sustain the needs of our two sites and convince the Ministry that a two-site hospital is what Muskoka and East Parry Sound needs and deserves in the future. Yours in health,
Philip Matthews Chair, MAHC Board of Directors www.mahc.ca Huntsville District Memorial Hospital Site 100 Frank Miller Drive, Huntsville, Ontario P1H 1H7 Tel: 705-789-2311 Fax: 705-789-0557
South Muskoka Memorial Hospital Site 75 Ann Street, Bracebridge, Ontario P1L 2E4 Tel: 705-645-4404 Fax: 705-645-4594
Proudly Serving our Communities – Delivering Best Patient Outcomes with High Standards and Compassion
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Plaques, such as this explaining the history of Captain Marsh and Marsh’s Falls, is one of the ways the Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation helps to preserve the built and natural heritage of Lake of Bays. phragmites and protects various habitats, especially the species at risk,” Mills continues. “Parts of the 150 acres are used for guided nature hikes, usually with a specific species focus. Other parts are only accessible by naturalists or people undertaking scientific observation. “The best way to experience Marsh’s Falls is to join in on the legendary Silent Boat Rally, where one can bring their canoe, kayak or paddleboard and join in on 8 km selfdirected eco-tour. It really is one of the most
beautiful settings in the township.” The heritage foundation has played an important role in reviving Lake of Bays’ favourite steamship, the former Bigwin ferry. The SS Bigwin began on Lake of Bays in 1925, as a ferry boat for vacationers and golfers for Bigwin Island Resort. When the resort closed in 1966, she spent her next 20 some years, partially submerged in her berth in one of the island’s boathouses. In 1991, Mark McLean, then president of Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation, happened
to see the vessel submerged in its waters and decided it needed saving. The heritage foundation then secured the lake’s beloved ferry and made a plan to develop its eventual restoration. Years later, when restoration was about to begin, ownership was transferred to the newly created Lake of Bays Marine Museum, where they restored her to the magnificent vessel she is today. Much of what the heritage foundation does goes unnoticed to the public. For example, there is the partnership with Ontario Heritage Trust, to be the steward of the 100-acre Pyke property near Brown’s Brae. It has also purchased one mile of natural shoreline and 47-acres of forest at Port Cunnington, protecting both properties from future development. Each year, the heritage foundation profiles a small community around the lake, to be recognized. Booklets are made and a documentary film is made with interviews of the people of the chosen community. Heritage awards are also presented to owners who maintain and enjoy the heritage value of their property. At present, there are more than 30 property owners and 250 historic buildings that have been awarded plaques for heritage protection. Wanting to reach out to the communities, the heritage foundation has established the Harriet T. Weaver Memorial Trust, which awards two yearly bursaries to financially assist one student from both Bracebridge and
The Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation has played an important role in reviving Lake of Bays’ favourite steamship, the former Bigwin ferry. The SS Bigwin began its tour of duty on Lake of Bays in 1925, as a ferry boat for vacationers and golfers for Bigwin Island Resort. September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 43
Some 150 acres of mostly wooded land and 6.5 km of shoreline on the lower Oxtongue River are now protected from development and over use by ATV and snowmobiles. Huntsville high schools with their first year of university or college. While a board of directors operates the heritage foundation, the heritage advisory committee works under the umbrella of the Township of Lake of Bays and focuses more on the cultural/historical tourism aspects. The latter committee has been said to have the best record of success in all of the District of Muskoka at attracting properties into designations for protection, according to chair of the committee, Jacquie Godard. This could have a little bit to do with the property tax relief offered to these landowners that encourages and supports them to be
44 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
stewards of their own heritage properties. At present, the Township of Lake of Bays is the only municipality in Muskoka that offers this Heritage Tax Relief Program. The advisory committee has a more of a hands-on approach, working closely with the communities in Lake of Bays. To date, they have produced three walking tour booklets on the
historic aspects of Dorset, Dwight and Baysville, and have awarded government plaques to heritage-designated buildings and properties. They participated in the Huntsville / Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce Doors Open weekend to promote cultural tourism for Lake of Bays. In October of 2017, the heritage advisory committee hosted an afternoon cruise onboard the S.S. Bigwin as well as a luncheon for 26 elders and members of the Chippewa of Rama First Nations. It is their ancestors who travelled through the waters of Lake of Bays – hunting, harvesting, fishing and trading on a regular basis. In 1923, their traditional rights were taken away through the Williams Treaties and have only been restored as part of their negotiations with the Crown, within the last couple of years. On behalf of the heritage advisory committee, two provincial heritage plaques were unveiled in the Heritage Park at Dorset Narrows in honour of recognizing the importance of the local history of the Anishinabek in the Lake of Bays area. With 120 people in attendance, the heritage advisory committee, along with the Chippewa’s of Rama First Nation and Ontario Heritage Trust, together unveiled the provincial plaque. It was a proud moment for all parties involved and dubbed by the heritage trust employees as the most successful provincial heritage plaque unveiling ever. In 2011, the Township of Lake of Bays was awarded second place in all of Ontario for the Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award in Community Leadership for exemplary leadership in conservation and promotion. It recognized the hard work and dedication and many achievements by the heritage advisory committee. The community of Lake of Bays, as a whole, is very fortunate to have such a great assembly of people working on their behalf. If it weren’t for both the heritage foundation and the heritage advisory committee, many old structures and the land around them would be just another collection of overdeveloped land and outdated wooden buildings, eventually to vanish or be damaged or replaced. If that were to happen, the magic of Lake of Bays history would be lost forever.
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TIPI Adventures Connecting with family, friends and the environment Article by Matt Driscoll / Photography by Tomasz Szumski
W
hat do you get when take 26 young urbanites and plunk them in the middle of the Muskoka bush with no WiFi, electricity or hot water and a tipi to sleep in? Apparently, you get a pretty good time. “It was awesome,” says Carlito Dumpit, an Ajax resident who spent this past May long weekend with 25 friends from the GTA at Tipi Adventure on Beatrice Town Line in Bracebridge. “It’s really off the grid. They don’t have electricity onsite, there’s not even hot water to bathe in, so it was a really different experience. We felt like we were pioneers.” Tipi Adventure is situated on 80 acres of boreal forest and the accommodations consist of three tipis, capable of holding 10 guests each. Dumpit heard about the tipis from a friend of a friend who had stayed there and recommended it. “At the start of the year, my friends and I make sure that all our vacation dates jive with each other. We usually go somewhere together for that May long weekend,” he says. “They wanted something different so that’s why they tried it.”
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The experience was like nothing the group had done before, as they explored the five kilometres of maintained trails onsite, the small pond and the surrounding forest. “They really enjoyed it. There were a lot of blackflies but aside from that, it was great,” says Dumpit. “It’s really different compared to just setting up tents or even living in a yurt. It’s very peaceful at night and a great way to reconnect.” Tipi Adventure is the brainchild of Jochen and Elke Schlichte, German immigrants who fell in love with the area when they first passed through on their way to Algonquin Park. “To be honest, the owners were probably the thing I enjoyed the most,” says Dumpit. “They take care of everything, right down to the hot chocolate and coffee they bring you in the morning. It’s a very nice personal touch.” The Schlichtes first came to Canada on vacation with their four young children in 1979 and were immediately smitten. “We fell in love with the country, seeing how all these different people could live peacefully together,” says Elke. “Things may have changed but that main concept has not changed. Canada, in our eyes, is still the best country in the world to live in.” The couple settled in Newmarket after moving to Canada in 1984. Upon retirement, they were looking for a new challenge to engage their active lifestyle and help supplement their retirement income. They had been eyeing property north of Toronto and the opportunity came up for them to purchase property on Beatrice Town Line through a relative. “Originally, there was nothing here, except one little cottage,” says Elke. “We were thinking about what we could do but there were limitations on what you can build. You couldn’t build any bunkhouses or cottages but we could have something that was not permanent.” The idea of building tipis began to percolate. It’s an idea that’s been closely tied into the fabric of German culture for more than a century. Starting in the late 1890s, author Karl May wrote a series of novels illustrating the fictional exploits of a German engineer called “Old Shatterhand” and an Apache chief
Above: Tipi Adventures offers five kilometres of maintained trails, a small pond and 80 acres of surrounding forest. Below: Campers at Tipi Adventures live off the grid and learn basic outdoor skills such as making a campfire. named Winnetou. The books would become a best-selling novel series in the history of the German language and would spawn popular films and stage adaptations. “This is what we grew up with in Germany,” says Elke. “The Native people were our heroes.” The idea began to solidify and they were able to purchase the tipis from a company based out of Oro-Medonte. The exteriors and interiors were decorated with large, original Canadian motifs, painted by artist Milada Tillingerova.
By 2013, the washrooms and kitchen facility were completed and Tipi Adventure was open for trial runs with friends and family. The following year, they opened to the public. “Business has really been increasing,” says Elke. “If you look online, you can see how people have really embraced it, despite the mosquitoes up here.” In addition to the tipis, themselves, the property has a freshwater pond where guests can fish and swim in the summer and skate in the winter (they clear an oval skating trail
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 47
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and the tipis are heated). There’s a sports field and the trails can be hiked, biked or snowshoed in the winter. They also have private outdoor showers with change rooms, waterless toilets, kitchen facilities and various games for inside and outside. “You just bring a sleeping bag and your food,” says Elke. The majority of guests, thus far, have come from the GTA but Elke says they’ve had visitors from around the globe. “France, Italy, Australia, Colombia – all over the world. We’ve also had a few Aboriginal groups,” says Elke. “Often they’re coming to visit family in Toronto and they want to do something special.” The number one goal is connection, according to Elke, connection with friends and family, and connection with the surrounding environment. “They like that it’s so beautiful here, so peaceful and they’re so close to nature,” she says. “We don’t have Wi-Fi, so you need to talk to each other, play games, hang out.” While the idea of cutting the cord to the outside world could cause many people’s blood pressure to rise, Carlos Dumpit says it was quite the opposite for him. “It wasn’t stressful at all,” he says. “In fact, it helps you de-stress. The pace is a little slower and we just played everything by ear.” Giselle Valdeiro, who visited in July with her husband, son, niece and nephew, would tend to agree. “It was truly a ‘one with nature’ experience,” says Valdeiro. “Tipi Adventures has struck the fine balance of providing essentials like shelter,
The exteriors and interiors of the three tipis are decorated with large, original Canadian motifs, painted by artist Milada Tillingerova. outdoor kitchen, firepit, solar lighting around the area, amazing bunk beds in the tipi, dishware, with the silence of being alone
in the woods. For the first time, we actually heard the sound of trembling aspens as their leaves rustled.”
Valdeiro says the trip was a step up from traditional camping, as they didn’t have to pack the car with supplies and they could
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also bring their golden lab along (something not allowed at provincial parks). Valdeiro also cited the hospitality of their hosts as one of the factors that made the trip so special. When their car blew a flat, Jochen took it into town for repairs, while Elke drove Valdiero to an appointment in Orillia. “We went to the tipi with a family of five and we returned with a family of seven, so to speak,” says Valdiero. “Their thoughtfulness and hospitality will stay with us for a long time to come.”
Making those connections is more than just a business philosophy for Jochen and Elke, it’s a personal mantra. “We don’t have an automated booking system for that reason. Things can be very impersonal these days but I want to speak with them because I enjoy it,” says Elke. “It’s very important to us that people find a way back to nature, cherish it and respect it. It’s about conscious living and really connecting - not just texting but that real feeling of connection.”
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T
amaracks DISTINCTIVE
Article by Doug Smith / Photography by Eleanor Kee Wellman
T
he First Nations have a legend about the tamarack tree and how it came to lose its needles. It is told something like this: “In late fall, many years ago, a huge winter storm was rolling in while a flock of migrating birds were flying south for the season. They needed to take shelter, so they asked the tamaracks if they could roost in their branches full of soft needles while the storm hit. The tamaracks were the most majestic trees in the forest and spent the majority of their time admiring their own reflections in the lakes nearby where they grew, so they said ‘No’ to the tired flock! “The tamaracks said they had already begun to settle in for their winter sleep and that the birds would be too noisy, so the flock was forced to fly on and find other shelter. The Great Spirit had watched the entire drama unfold and became very disappointed with the tamarack trees. In an effort to teach them a lesson, the Great Spirit declared, ‘Because you did not give your brothers and sisters, the birds, any shelter; neither will you have shelter from the
As the tamarack matures, it produces both male and female flowers, which turn into very small cones on the open areas on young branches or on the crown.
52 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
cold of winter. From now on your needles will fall off like the leaves of the trees to the south.’ “All of a sudden, the slumbering tamaracks awakened to feel the chilling wind on their branches. They watched helplessly as their warm winter coat fell to the ground. The winters were very, very hard for the tamarack. In the years that followed, they gradually learned to weather the cold by becoming smaller and more unassuming, while at the same time they became stronger and more durable.” Most of us know the tamarack as the tree with the glowing foliage in the late fall, after most other trees have already dropped their leaves. Part of the “last hurrah” of autumn, along with poplars, they are a unique deciduous-coniferous tree. These interesting trees are distinctive in a number of other, lesser-known ways. Often referred to as larch, because they are closely related to the larch of Europe, the tamarack is a distinct species from its old-world cousin. A true northerner, the tamarack can take the cold of a Canadian winter. Muskoka is at the southern edge of their range. They grow throughout the boreal forest, all the way up to the tree line. “They are often the first trees to take root in the highly acidic substrate around peat bogs in northern areas,” says Gayle Carlyle, a volunteer with the Couchiching Conservancy near Orillia, in a blog post on tamaracks. There are few peat bogs in Muskoka. In this region, “Tamaracks thrive in wet, sunny conditions such as open wetlands and are often found growing alongside balsam fir,” Carlyle explains, pointing out that, “Tall, mature tamaracks provide a safe nesting site for a variety of songbirds.”
Legend ANDFacts
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 53
Tamaracks are often the first trees to take root in the highly acidic substrate around peat bogs in northern areas like Muskoka, which is at the southern edge of tamarack’s range. She adds, “As the tree matures, it produces both male and female flowers which turn into very small cones on the open areas on young branches or on the crown. These cones contain nutritious nuts, much sought after by crossbills and purple finches.” The tree is a winter food source for some mammals, as well. “The bark must be somewhat tasty,” Tom Clark suggests. Serving on the board of Westwind Forest Stewardship since its beginning in 1997, Clark has an ecologist background. “Snowshoe hares eat the young saplings above the snow,” notes Clark, adding that mice eat the tree’s bark from the subnivean layer under the snow. The name tamarack is an Algonquin word meaning “wood used for snowshoes.” The pliable but tough and rot-resistant wood of the tamarack is ideal for such a use. It’s also known the native Algonquins used the tree for medicinal purposes, such as a poultice for cuts, to treat arthritis, and to help with indigestion. They found other uses for tamaracks, as well. “More and more pictures of Indigenous structures which I’m studying show what could only be tamaracks providing excellent support for tenting, tipis and canvas lodges,”
54 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
says historian Patrick Boyer. “It is a wonderful tree, one I’ve always appreciated for its appearance and because of its uniqueness as the only deciduous conifer. I have used tamaracks when in the bush needing straight poles for tenting, rail, and other woodsman needs,” says Boyer. Boyer’s not sure the early Europeans in Muskoka found much use for the tamarack. “I’ve not heard of tamaracks used for corduroy roads, likely because they weren’t. Tamaracks being pretty small would not have likely been considered.” He adds, “They might well have been used for posts by surveyors.” The natural crooks in the trees’ stumps and roots did serve a special purpose for boat builders, being used for the knee braces. Local wooden boat aficionado and boat restorer Paul Gockel explains the tree’s “natural-crook knees... were the strongest part of a weak wood. They may be more the item found in assembled stem construction of larger boats like the Fairmiles,” The Fairmiles were wooden minesweepers built locally for the Canadian navy during World War II. Gockel continues, “Tamarack and Hackmatack are the same species. This
confused the boat builders during the war when one species was called for and the other nomenclature was used. Same animal!” Nowadays, the tamarack has some limited use as pulp, “though it’s not as sought out for this purpose as the standard spruce, pine and fir (SPF) trees,” according to Clark. “It’s a low-profile species,” Clark states, meaning that is under-utilized in the forestry industry. “The forest industry has tried to commercial it,” he explains, “but it just can’t compete with the SPF trees.” Clark adds, “I can tell you our deck is made out of tamarack. It’s gorgeous wood, with large growth rings, and its finish is amazing. Because of its grain and the hardness of the wood, it gets dark when stained, so looks like the deck of a ship.” He continues, “It is a very hard wood, with excellent resistance to rot, like cedar. The idea to use tamarack came from some foresters who mentioned that some saw mills will supply it (small mills). It is not pressure treated.” While under appreciated in some ways, the tamarack owns many enduring properties, not the least of which is its soft, golden colour late in the fall.
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Whats Happened
56 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
Photograph: Nancy Beal
A service delivery model that would keep two acute-care hospital sites in Muskoka was endorsed by the board of directors for Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) at a meeting on Thursday, August 9. It was a decision welcomed by the community, which had expressed displeasure with the board’s previous endorsement of a single-site hospital model. The board’s new recommendation requires approval by the Ministry of Health The recommendation was made by a 25-member Capital Plan Development Task Force which has spent 12 months reviewing options. “After more extensive consultation and study through this stage of planning, we learned that based on currently projected land-use planning requirements, a central location would not be feasible from a land-use planning perspective. The board also continues to acknowledge the importance of travel times and access to care when selecting the model, as well as community and municipal support that is necessary for funding the local share,” said Phil Matthews, MAHC board chair in a media release. “We hope that this decision to support a two acute sites model is one that everyone can truly get behind, so that together we can sustain the needs of our two sites, and convince the ministry that a two-site hospital is what Muskoka and East Parry Sound needs and deserves in the future.” The endorsement replaces a 2015 recommendation that supported a single hospital for the region and will be part of a submission to the North Simcoe Muskoka Local Health Integration Network that will include programs and services envisioned for the future, including additional inpatient beds, a proposed stroke rehabilitation unit and MRI technology. The task force will now move on to part B
Photograph: Kelly Holinshed
MAHC board supports recommendation for two acute-care hospital sites
A recommendation to keep two acute-care hospital sites has received the support of the Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare board of directors. Next steps will include, among other things, decisions on how those facilities will be developed in the future. of the Stage 1 planning process, which will concentrate on physical design and infrastructure, including a recommendation for a new build, renovation of the existing hospital sites, or a combination of build and renovate. Part B also requires a fundraising plan for the local share of the redevelopment costs. Once both parts of the Stage 1 proposal are completed in 2019, the plan will be submitted to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for approval to continue with the next stage in the five-stage capital planning process. MAHC CEO Natalie Bubela urged the community to remember its hospitals in Bracebridge and Huntsville still need support throughout the multi-year planning process. “Millions of dollars in infrastructure investments are needed today, just to keep the two sites operating, and we rely on community donations to fund the equipment, technology and building
upgrades that ensure safe, high-quality care for everyone we serve… Please consider our foundations and auxiliaries in your charitable giving and show your support for our two-site hospital now and in the future.” For more information on the recommendation, visit mahc.ca.
New multi-use visitor centre opens at Arrowhead Park Visitors to Arrowhead Provincial Park now have a more central location to access interpretive programs, rentals, a park store and a place to warm up in the winter. The park’s new visitor centre opened in July. Planning and design for the project began four years ago with the bulk of the construction happening over the past year. It is a beautiful addition to the popular area, just north of Huntsville.
Bracebridge hosts Muskoka’s first-ever Pride parade In honour of the 10th anniversary of the Muskoka Pride Festival, Bracebridge hosted the first-ever Muskoka Pride Parade. “We’ve been asked year after year when we’ll have a parade, and the 10th anniversary felt like the time to do it,” said organizer Shawn Forth of Muskoka Pride. It was a successful event with about 130 participants in the parade, and 700-800 people attending the picnic that followed in Memorial Park. The theme for the 2018 festival, which ran from July 20-29, was Bringing Pride to You. Multiple events were held in many Muskoka communities including a kick-off barbecue in Huntsville’s River Mill Park and flag raisings in many of the region’s municipalities. The goal of the
Photograph: Dawn Henderson
On the main floor, a park store will be open throughout the summer and fall, and will become rental space for winter gear in December. A programming room, complete with a stone fireplace and small kitchen, will be used for interpretive programs in the summer months and as a warming area for skiers, skaters and snowshoers in the winter. The lower level houses a summer rental shop for bikes, canoes, kayaks and stand-up paddleboards. A separate winterized picnic building, located across a green space from the main visitor centre, has a stone fireplace, a small food preparation area and a waxing room that will be used for ski programming in the winter. It will be available for group rentals in the summer. Arrowhead Provincial Park superintendent Peter Briand said the new facility will be well used in all seasons but particularly in the winter months. Winter use has increased dramatically at the park in recent years, thanks in part to the popularity of its skating trail. The visitor centre’s official opening ceremony will occur in December 2018 as part of Ontario Parks 125th anniversary celebrations. Watch for details at ontarioparks.com/op125.
Arrowhead Provincial Park now offers a more central location to access interpretive programs, rentals, a park store and a place to warm up in the winter when many visitors are attracted to park trails. Muskoka Pride Festival is to create inclusive spaces for Muskoka’s LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) population and their allies. “It was 10 days of pretty awesome activities,” said Forth in a video to the organization’s Facebook followers. “It’s been a great 10 years and we’re looking forward to 10 more.” Visit muskokapride.com for more information about the organization.
Watershed Report Card shows fragmentation a big concern for Muskoka The Muskoka Watershed Council (MWC) released its fifth Watershed Report Card on July 19. The report card uses eight environmental indicators – total phosphorus, calcium, benthic macroinvertebrates (benthos), interior forest, climate change, species at risk, invasive species and fragmentation – to evaluate the region’s general environmental health. Each of Muskoka’s subwatersheds is rated as not stressed, vulnerable or stressed for each indicator. Overall, there’s some good news and some not so good news. Phosphorus concentrations in Muskoka’s lakes look good although they’re on the rise in
some, and some lakes are vulnerable for too-low calcium concentrations. Benthos rates are typical across most of Muskoka’s subwatersheds, indicating good overall lake health – these bugs are sensitive to changes in water quality and their numbers say a lot about how well the lakes are doing. Climate change is an ongoing concern, and data in the report card shows there’s been an increase in surface water temperature and a decrease in days of ice coverage on Muskoka’s lakes due to warming temperatures. One of the biggest concerns is fragmentation with almost all of Muskoka’s subwatersheds listed as vulnerable or stressed. Eighty-two per cent of the Muskoka Watershed comprises natural areas like lakes, wetlands and forests. Fragmentation occurs when these areas are destroyed for development purposes like building roads and urbans areas resulting in habitat loss, decreased biodiversity, and a fragmented landscape. The best way to limit the effects of fragmentation in Muskoka, says the MWC, “is to be a land steward and help support and protect shorelines and green infrastructure initiatives.” You can learn how your subwatershed ranks for all of the indicators in the 2018 Muskoka Watershed Report Card at muskokawatershed.org.
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Cuisine for the hiking trail (and afterwards) Article by Karen Wehrstein / Photography by Tomasz Szumski It’s fall and it’s pretty-much bug-free in Muskoka, the perfect time to hit the trail for a brisk hike or a relaxed amble through your favourite forest. And, if you’re making it a walk of substantial length, say a full day, you’re going to want to nibble along the way, enjoy a picnic lunch in some idyllic spot, then put up your well-worked feet and sit back for a delicious, hearty dinner. For hiking fare that combines good nutrition with top-of-the-line taste, we start first with Best Ever, a trail mix that started out as a favourite treat for Matt Richter of Port Sydney and his family. Over the years, this mix was gradually refined and, since becoming a retail product at the beginning of 2017, has taken Muskoka and the world by storm, recommended by no less than a member of Canada’s winter Olympic team. Origin of the name: sampling after each new version of the recipe, a family member would say, “that last batch was pretty good... but this one is the best ever!” “Through our outdoor
For hiking fare that combines good nutrition with top-of-the-line taste, Best Ever is a trail mix that started out as a favourite treat for Matt Richter (above) of Port Sydney and his family.
58 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
experiences, we found we were eating arguably good food but feeling like we were hungry right after,” says Richter. “Part of the journey that Best Ever took was to come up with a food that tasted really good but delivered sustainable energy, so you’re not hungry again within half an hour to an hour.” The ingredients are no secret, listed right on the package: almonds, sunflower seeds, pepitas, walnuts, pecans, maple syrup, coconut oil, cinnamon and sea salt. What gives the mix its unique texture – it is crispy and tender at the same time, so it melts in your mouth as you chew it, if you can imagine that – is the way it is made. The nuts and seeds are soaked for more than 12 hours in filtered water. Next, the other ingredients are added and the mixture is placed in a dehydrator for more than 15 hours at a low temperature. This process was arrived at through culinary research, community input and trial and error. “We have the process down to get that specific texture that comes across
as roasted but retains the nutritional value of raw food,” Richter says. Both the Richter family and their customers began experimenting with Best Ever as an ingredient, using it as a topper on salads, a complement to appetizers or a crunchy (and virtuous) addition to desserts. One intriguing picture on the company website shows a heap of Best Ever slathered with syrup atop a wheel of brie. For a practical backpacking snack, Richter offers us the recipe for the Best Ever Energy Bar, adapted from an existing energy bar
Chef Sam Robertson (below) of Bartlett Lodge prepares a noodle salad for hikers that offers a range of textures and flavours that provide new surprises with each mouthful for quite a long time after one starts eating.
recipe by substituting Best Ever for other ingredients. “We’ve been making these for about a year now,” Richter says. “The kids love them, they really do. It delivers everything that an energy bar, or even a candy bar, does. It’s super healthy. You can eat it all without guilt.” Next on our culinary trek we will tread deep into one of Canada’s most iconic trail destinations, the vast and magnificent Algonquin Park, in search of the perfect picnic lunch. From a landing on Cache Lake, about 23 kilometres in from the West
Gate on Hwy 60, it’s a short ferry ride to Bartlett Lodge, a homey and rustic cottage resort that celebrated 100 years of continuous service last year. Chef Sam Robertson is a graduate of George Brown College’s cooking school in Toronto and a 24-year veteran of the culinary trade. He has travelled all over the world to cook: India, Nepal, Costa Rica, Mexico, Italy, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand
Recipes Best Ever Energy Bar Matt Richter, Best Ever Foods
Ingredients 10 Medjool dates ½ cup Best Ever ¼ cup hemp seed ¼ cup coconut flakes 2 Tbsp coconut oil 4 Tbsp raw cacao powder
Method • Combine all ingredients in a highpowered blender, pulse 7 to 8 times, 3 to 4 seconds per pulse, stirring between each pulse, until the dates are finely chopped (or to your own preference). • Press into a glass dish with a lid and refrigerate for one hour, then cut into bars. Tip: keep bars cool as you go, to prevent them from getting gooey. Unless you like them gooey.
(where he learned, among other things, that Thai chefs use cilantro stems in their curries, reserving the leaves for garnishes). Having grown up in Bradford, he’s also cooked from coast to coast in Canada, and writes columns on cuisine for the National Observer. Not surprisingly, Robertson has hiked throughout the park as well as hiking the Alberta Rockies, Vancouver Island, Australia and a park in the Himalayas beloved by Everest conqueror Edmund Hillary. “I found a way I like to cook tofu,” says Robertson. “We had a daily salad, so I was looking for something different. I tried vinaigrette with five-spice powder.” Did your eyes just pop? He goes on. “I wanted something slightly different but still accessible, not so unusual that people don’t want to eat it. I find when you do a vegetarian dish it has to have a range of textures and flavours. Vegetarians tend to be a little more curious that way.” The resulting noodle salad has such a range of textures and flavours that new surprises keep hitting your palate for quite a long time after you’ve started eating. The five spice works beautifully, somehow, with the Dijon. Roasted sesame seeds add a lovely nuttiness to the sweetness of peppers and edamame. “You can make anything delicious by layering on fat, sugar and salt,” Robertson philosophizes, “but it shouldn’t dominate.” Indeed. Where’s the challenge in that?
September 2018 UNIQUE MUSKOKA 59
Soba Noodle Salad with Five Spice Vinaigrette Sam Robertson, Bartlett’s Lodge
Note: Chef Robertson prefers metric recipes because, he says, “They’re more precise.”
Ingredients
500 ml or 2 cups cooked Soba noodles 1 block extra firm tofu, diced 1 red pepper, julienned 80 ml or 1/3 cup edamame, cooked and shelled 3 green onions, finely sliced 15 ml or 1 Tbsp sesame seeds, toasted Fresh cilantro, to taste 45 ml or 3 Tbsp soy sauce 10 ml or 2 tsp sesame oil 45 ml or 3 Tbsp cooking oil – he uses sunflower
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Method
• Place a pan on the stove over medium high heat and allow to heat up for five minutes. • Add oil, wait 30 seconds, then add tofu. Once it is seared on most sides, turn off heat and add soy sauce and sesame oil. Shake the pan to coat the tofu evenly, and cool.
For the dressing:
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30ml or 2 Tbsp Dijon mustard 15ml or 1 Tbsp five-spice powder 90ml or 6 Tbsp maple syrup 45ml or 3 Tbsp soy sauce 250ml or 1 cup red wine vinegar 500ml or 2 cups vegetable oil
• Place all ingredients except the oil in a blender. With blender running slowly, add oil • Combine the noodles, edamame and red peppers in a large mixing bowl. • Mix in desired amount of dressing. • Divide into four bowls. • Garnish with tofu, green onion, cilantro and sesame seeds. Enjoy!! Chef’s Tips: To get the tofu crisp on the outside: “You need to let the oil get nice and hot,” Robertson advises. “People make the mistake of stirring too soon...leave it. It sticks initially, but once it’s caramelized, it’ll unstick.” Meat lovers can substitute chicken, salmon, trout or barbecued pork for the tofu. To keep the cilantro fresh while hiking: put in a separate container or on top of the other ingredients.
The recipe for sweet and savoury chicken is an original for Chef Jamie Weaver and new on The Norsemen’s menu this summer. It provides a hearty meal after a day of hiking.
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We end our tasty jaunt with an after-hike dinner at The Norsemen Restaurant, located on Walker Lake, about 14 kilometres from downtown Huntsville. The building is 93 years old and held up by 12 by 12-inch posts and beams, the sort of wood you simply can’t get new. Currently being renovated by new owners who acquired it in August of last year, The Norsemen has long been appreciated for dishes such as Duck Confit, Pan Seared Trout, Kalentil Salad or Sweet and Savoury Chicken. The head chef is Jamie Weaver, originally from the Alliston-Barrie area and now in his third year at The Norsemen. Cuisine is in Weaver’s blood; his parents own a restaurant in Nicaragua. He began working in eateries at age 18, attended cooking school in Vancouver, and then, in his 20s, travelled through southeast Asia, South America and Australia, learning new cooking tricks all the way. He ended up settling in the community of Oxtongue Lake. Chef Weaver says he enjoys the outdoors but wouldn’t call himself an avid hiker. “I’ve been very fortunate to have done quite a few memorable hikes in my travels, though,” he says. Two among many are Volcano Maderas in Nicaragua and Croagh Patrick in Ireland. “Nowadays, I mostly just enjoy walking with my dog,” he says. “Once I return, I like to find a nice patio and enjoy a hearty meal and some cold local beverages.” The recipe for sweet and savoury chicken is original to Chef Weaver and new on the Norsemen menu this summer. It’s popular with the clientele, and also Norsemen manager Rob Duncan, who confesses that he eats it at least once a week. The bacon and onion-enhanced kale is delicate and juicy but what really makes this dish is the glaze, sweet and hot all at once, a terrific foil for the delicacy of white meat. You just want to keep eating it. “Kale’s really healthy,” says Weaver. “I thought I’d make it unhealthy with bacon and butter. Everybody likes sweet chicken. You can’t go wrong. It pleases the kids, pleases grandma and everybody in between.” It’s true. The day after visiting the Norsemen, your intrepid reporter tried just the chicken portion of this recipe at home, and even with my amateur degree of skill, it was to die for.
Recipes
Sweet and Savoury Chicken with Braised Kale Jamie Weaver, The Norsemen
Honey-Mustard Glaze Ingredients 1/4 cup grainy mustard (homemade is better) 1/4 cup honey 1 tsp hot mustard powder salt and pepper to taste • Combine all ingredients and mix thoroughly.
Sweet and Savoury Chicken Ingredients 2 chicken breasts, skin on, bone in (serves two)
Method • Warm oven to 450 F, season chicken with salt and pepper. • Heat an ovenproof pan at medium high until hot, add 2 Tbsp of oil (vegetable, canola or sunflower), then carefully add chicken skin-side down. • Sear for a minute then place pan in oven. • Flip once skin is crispy (about five minutes), cover in glaze and let finish cooking at 350, to 160F on meat thermometer (8-10 minutes).
Braised Kale Ingredients 2 heaping handfuls of kale, not chopped 3 slices thick-cut bacon cut into lardons ½ an onion, sliced ½ cup white wine 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped, grated or pressed 1 Tbsp butter Salt and pepper to taste
Method • Heat another ovenproof pan on medium heat, and add bacon. Once bacon fat starts to render, add onions and garlic. • Place kale in pan with salt and pepper, pour in wine and cover with a lid. • Place in 350F-degree oven for 10 minutes, or more if you want the kale to be very soft. • Remove and mix in butter. • Place the chicken atop the kale and serve with extra honey-mustard mixture. Chef ’s Tips Don’t use olive oil as its burn point is too low. You can use the same oven for both chicken and kale. Or, try it on the barbecue. Happy hiking and bon appétit.
Chef Jamie Weaver with his hearty dish − Sweet and Savoury Chicken with Braised Kale.
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Muskoka Moments
Outrunning Pig By Scott Young get, whether they live in town, Pig was a medium-small on a bush lot, or on the lake. white dog with short hair, a These days, I am focussed on large head and a pink muzzle. promoting nature conservation It belonged to a cottage working with Muskoka neighbour at Lake of Bays, Conservancy. I’m proud to say and when I was 10 or so, Pig our group has been able to was always on the loose. create a patchwork of protected I remember arriving at the areas across the district and we cottage a week later than are determined to add to it. My usual one year. Upon arrival, personal motivation, I’m sure, my brother, sister and I is rooted in some of those bumped into a neighbour, childhood memories, like the John, who’d been there since ones I mentioned above. What school ended. it amounts to is this: I don’t “Let’s go for a swim,” said want to imagine Muskoka John. without nature and wildness. We said “sure,” and John Without Lake trout. Without said something like, “last one Childhood memories have informed Scott Young's perspective on future sparkling clean water, forests, in is a dirty rotten egg,” and development in Muskoka. trails, wetlands and turtles. he took off running full speed Imagine Muskoka without bears. No thanks. around because he was busy triangulating barefoot on the gravel road. We took off in What I have learned from my grandfather our position. When we idled onto a certain pursuit, none of us wanting to be the rotten and from reporting Muskoka’s stories, and spot, he’d give me the nod and I got to drop egg but within a step or two we were from sharing a few beers with old timers on a Secchi-disc, a tool used to help the lake tiptoeing gingerly, slowed down by our soft, council, is if there’s going to be space for association determine the water quality in suburban feet. more and more people in Muskoka, we need Lake of Bays. “Ooh, ah, ouch.” Every step was to take very specific steps to make sure wild Many people I know who spent summers torturously painful. That is until Pig came Muskoka survives. in Muskoka can go on and on with these charging around the bend! Those steps may be uncomfortable, like kinds of stories. Love of Muskoka that’s “It’s Pig!” we shouted as we leapt off the running barefoot on gravel, but it’s dock, just ahead of the snarling pink muzzle. ingrained in childhood, I have thought, is absolutely necessary if you want to escape Thankfully, Pig didn’t swim. We were safe completely unshakeable. the charging Pig. Later in life, I was lucky enough to land a in the lake. job as a reporter with the Bracebridge Within a few days, our feet were covered Examiner and able to move to Muskoka full in globs of blackened pine pitch and time. Often I wrote stories about people’s toughened up. A bathing suit and T-shirt Passionate about balancing the needs of stories. Muskoka has some real characters. was pretty much all we needed for clothes. community and the natural environment, Scott Some of those characters even run for We’d put on shoes for only two reasons: one, Young is executive director of Muskoka local office, and my own Muskoka if Mom made us go with her to Stinking experience really went into hyper drive when Conservancy where he has overall strategic and Creek Road, where the coin laundry was at; I ran for Muskoka District Council in 2000. operational responsibilities for its land trust. A and two, to go to weekly bingo at the For 14 years, council allowed me to continue registered charity, Muskoka Conservancy also Baysville arena where you could win a crisp engages people in outdoor activities and roving around, learning to understand the $2 bill for yelling “BINGO!” What a thrill! stewardship experiences that inspire caring for deep passion Muskoka folks have for their Not everything was as topsy-turvy as all the natural environment. Young lives in neighbourhoods. There’s a wide range of that. I remember how serious it was to be Bracebridge with Martha Armstrong and their circumstances in Muskoka, but there seems invited to go out on the lake with my to be no variance in how fired up people can son Winston. Grampa Harry. We’d always putt-putt
64 UNIQUE MUSKOKA September 2018
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